TAMMANY IN THE OPEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1126, 13 May 1911, Page 4

TAMMANY IN THE OPEN.

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On more than one occasion in the past the liability of the Hon. E. M Kenzie to speak with a bluntness that his colleagues are usually just clever enough to eschew has proved useful as a means of disclosing to the public the real views of the Government. Never, however, has his rough downrightness and lack of finesse served the public so well as when, at a banquet at Opunakc, last Saturday, he blurted out a truth that his colleagues and the Government's supporters generally are always anxious to deny. We reproduced ths material portions of hit speech in our issue of yesterday, and most people must have found in them as much to entertain as to provoke their disapSroval, for, as we shall see, Mr. ['Kenzie's declaration of the "spoils to tli3 victors" policy was forced from him by his audience's misapprehension of his attempt to give them a broad hint about the way to "merit" the railway they desired. This particular method of influencing electors is in almost daily operation. It isseen in the occasional speech in which some Minister, speaking in the electorate of a supporter whose position is shaky, tells his'audience that the member is an (excellent one, and "is a perfect nuisance from the persistence with which he.presses the claims of this district upon Ministers." The public has not forgotten the attempt of the Government to defeat Mr. Buick at the last general election by threateniiifi that unless Mk.

Wood were elected Palmerston wouM not got the Dairy School that had boon promised—a threat that will almost certainly be made again next December on behalf of Mn. M'Naii. Nor is the memory forgotten of the shameless bribe respecting the Tc Kuiti Native leases that assisted to secure the election ctf the present member for Eangitikci. But why I need we multiply the evidences that establish the best known lact in our politics! Sooner or later it was bound to happen that the policy of "the spoils to the victors" would be announced in plain terms. Mn. M'Kenzie so announced it in his Opunakc speech. He was very emphatic in his recognition of the necessity for the New Plymoutli-Opunake railway. It was "ona of the first railways that had a claim on tho taxpavcrs," but he would not give any definite promise. The chairman at the banquet was delighted. "It was the. best news they had heard for some time," ho said, "that the Hon. M'Kenzie considers it shoiild be one o£ the first lines in New Zealand to be started." This was the statement that threw the Minister off his guard. He had done his best to convey in his first speech, a hint that the district, in order to make certain of its railway, should send a supporter of the Government 1 to Parliament; yet here was the chairman missing the hint altogether and interpreting the speoch as a promise to start the railway. Clearly, it was a case for plain speaking. Mr. M'Kenzie, therefore, "pointed out that he had promised nothing except that the railway deserves to be put first on the list of branch railways, and also his assistance as t.ljr. district merits, it, as the railway will be self-supporting." How the district will merit it, in his opinion, Me. M'Kenzie proceeded to make clear: '

But you fend members to the Houm who slate us for borrowing and squandering, to which I object, as I am a man who looks after the ratepayers' interests. . . . Wβ cannot borrow if you slop us. )Ve arc prepared to give you a railway in two years if you do not stop borrowing. The late Hon. li. .1. Seddon told yon if you apply tho brake you will go behind; and if you do not support us you must so without your railway. . . , If you belong to tho stagnation party you must go without your railway. People who vote for us, I am with them.

It is no wonder that tho chairman, in ;i further speech, expressed his difficulty in reconciling this sort of talk with the Minister's earlier statement that the Government did not make any distinctions as to party in the matter of granting the public money. We arc glad that Ml?. M'Kexzie has been so explicit. Attempts will be made, of course, to explain that fill ho meant was that if money is not borrowed railways cannot be built. The Minister ought to have said only that, as a matter of tactics, and he probably would have said it but that he had found that his audience thought he had meant to be taken literacy in his profession of impartiality. Of course, Mr. M'Kenz'ie has merely admitted what everybody knows is the Government's policy. The significance of tho fact that a Minister has como into the open is tho growing fear of the Government that trouble is waiting for it at the election in December. Having no policy whatever save the policy 'of borrow and squander, it must make the most of it; and, knowing thai;, such an anti-national corception, of the work of government canrot take the place of principles and ideas, it i= driven to make its last throw in tho blunt and open fashion disclosed above. Mn. M'Kekzie's candour, such as it is., is infinitely preferable to the methods of his colleagues--it at least leaves the public no exn:-:o fo" not understanding the slate our politics hare descended to.